Why Sugarpine?

Sugarpine Engineering is inspired by the tree with the largest cones in the world: the Sugar Pine tree. This tree is prevalent in the Sierra Nevada mountains, at the highest parts of the range.

When we accept your project, we know we have a big name to live up to. This is a good thing- it means we constantly strive to provide the highest level of design and service.

Our background is in complex HVAC system interactions – air quality hydronics, geothermal, solar, and uber-high efficiency equipment. Making these systems function together in a way that truly achieves energy reduction is not easy- a contractor cannot simply install a new boiler and get the efficiencies advertised- the operational flows and temperatures must be set (and tested, and verified) to work with the building systems and the equipment parameters. This is especially true for solar and ground source heat pumps (GSHPs). Small variances in temperatures and flows can result in huge changes in energy consumption.

It takes experience and research to calculate these interactions and get it right. It also takes construction-phase involvement from your engineer. Because facilities construction is not like iPhone mass-production, there isn’t a chance to “build a few and work out the bugs.”

Some bugs must be worked out during construction and during the early stages of operation. A good design team will work to avoid most issues with good plans, but unless your project is fully BIM (and your design team is paid to do 4x additional coordination), chances are good that there will be field items to work through. This is not a bad thing- simply how construction of anything works- a prototype car, airplane, or computer is exactly the same.